‘At the hospital—that’s where I’m to take you, the boss says.’
‘Oh, Charlie.’ Kim found she was gripping the top of the car door like a lifeline.
Charlie drove to the hospital as though he was competing in Formula One, and once there Kim was whisked away by a sympathetic-faced nurse and led through a bewildering maze of corridors to the children’s wards. The nurse would say nothing beyond Melody had been taken ill at school and they were doing some tests, but the sister who met her at the entrance to the unit was more forthcoming.
‘Suspected meningitis,’ she said very softly after she’d told Kim Melody was in an isolation room. ‘Another child from Melody’s class was brought in with the same thing during the night and the school was informed first thing, fortunately. Has Melody been poorly at all over the last day or two? A little off-colour or feverish?’
‘She’s been a little tired, headachey,’ Kim said numbly, feeling like the worst mother in the world. ‘I wanted to keep her off school this morning, actually, but there were tears and she insisted she wanted to go. They were choosing children for the country dancing display at the summer fête next week.’
The sister nodded understandingly. She’d had children herself. ‘It was only at midday she was taken really poorly,’ she said quietly, ‘but with the school having been informed about the other child they decided not to take any chances, so when they couldn’t contact you she was admitted. Wise decision, in the event, but she’s now on antibiotics and she’ll be fine so try not to worry. This is easy to treat if it’s caught early enough, but in some cases it worsens very rapidly, especially in babies and children as young as Melody.’
‘Can…. can I see her?’ Kim asked faintly.
‘Of course. Your fiancé has been with her almost from when she was brought in, so she hasn’t been alone for the tests, Mrs Allen. I think it would have been easier to prise a bear cub away from its mother than Melody from Mr Kane,’ she added a trifle drily.
Her fiancé? Kim gazed at the small brisk woman bewilderedly but said nothing.
When Kim entered the small, white sterile room, Lucas rose immediately from the chair at the side of the bed, but not before Kim saw he had been holding one small dimpled hand between his own.
Melody was fast asleep, her fair hair spread out over the regulation hospital pillow and her thick eyelashes resting on flushed cheeks. She didn’t actually look ill at all, Kim thought faintly, as she walked over and stood looking down at the small figure, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
‘It’s okay; they’ve told you it’s okay?’ Lucas said softly as he came and stood beside her, his arm round her shoulders.
‘Oh, Lucas.’ She turned into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably, and he held her very tightly until she calmed down, by which time the sister had left and they were alone. He put her from him a little, looking down at her with intent compelling eyes as he said, ‘She’s really going to be all right, Kim. It’s not a sop, okay? I’ve checked with everyone in authority and they’ve caught it in the early stages, due to the warning of the other child.’
There was another silence but still she couldn’t speak, the tears sparkling on her cheeks like tiny diamonds. ‘I’m sorry.’ It was a faint whisper but he still heard it.
‘This is not your fault, Kim. You weren’t to know.’
‘I mean…I mean about us, this morning, everything. I…I can’t believe I said all that.’
‘You’re sorry? When I practically raped you,’ he said with a rough softness that spoke of inner torment. ‘When I sent you racing off to goodness knows where? I’ll never forgive myself—’
‘It wasn’t like that.’ She felt paralysed by all the emotion of the day, utterly spent, but she couldn’t let him take any blame for something that had been all her fault. ‘It was me. I was horrible,’ she said brokenly. ‘I said horrible things.’
‘Because I made you,’ he said gruffly, his voice shaking. ‘You never lied to me, Kim. You were totally honest from day one, making it quite clear you didn’t want to get involved with any man. But in my arrogance I thought because I loved you so much I could make you love me. I couldn’t believe I could feel the way I did and it wouldn’t affect you. I used the physical attraction between us to try and make you look at me as a man rather than just your employer.’
‘I…I do.’
‘As a friend, I know.’ He took a deep hard breath and then they both stilled as the tiny figure in the bed sighed softly, before falling back into a deeper sleep.
‘Not as a friend,’ said Kim in a shaky whisper. He had said he loved her. Did he still love her? ‘I…I love you, Lucas. I have done almost from when we met but I was too scared and hung up on everything that’s happened in the past to believe it could work. Graham…some of the things he said and did—I couldn’t believe any man would want me if they knew what I was really like. He said I was frigid, a pretty parcel with nothing inside.’
He was looking at her with incredulity stamped all over his hard, handsome face, and that, more than the words that followed, convinced Kim how wrong, how terribly misguided, she had been to ever link Graham and Lucas in her mind for one moment.
Lucas was the sort of man who loved for ever. She had trampled his male pride into the ground this morning and made him hate himself in the process, and yet—believing it was all over between them and that she loathed him—he had come to Melody’s side to be with her because he knew Kim couldn’t. He could be a hard man, and ruthless, but with her and with Melody he had been wonderful.
‘Kim, I love you more than I can ever say and I always will,’ Lucas said with quiet emphasis. ‘I want to marry you and have children with you and grow old with you. I want to know you are my wife and I have the right to cherish and protect you and take care of you and our family. I love you more than life, Kim. It kills me that you’ve had to go through what you have, but I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you, if you’ll let me.’
‘I…I thought you wouldn’t want me any more, after this morning. You stopped—’ She couldn’t go on but she didn’t have to.
‘I stopped because I suddenly realised what I was doing,’ he said softly, his voice husky and the faint accent that occasionally flavoured his words giving a smoky undertone to what he was saying. ‘I didn’t want our first time to be like that, Kim, even if it was going to be our only time,’ he added with faint ruefulness. ‘I’d lost control. I was angry; it made me no better than Graham—’
‘No, don’t say that, not ever.’ She placed a finger on his lips, her voice breaking. ‘You’re the best there is, Lucas.’
His mouth sought hers and he kissed her with gentle reassurance at first, holding her close as he whispered his love against her lips, and then more passionately as she melted against him. ‘Earth and heaven might disappear, my love, the moon might stop shining and the sun might fall into the ocean, but I’ll never stop loving you,’ he murmured after a time as they drew away to look into each other’s faces.
They talked and kissed some more before Lucas brought another chair close to the bed, so they could sit together. ‘I feel like she’s my child, too,’ Lucas whispered softly, turning away from the little figure in the bed as he lifted Kim’s chin and met her eyes. ‘Right from the first time I saw her, and I could swear she feels the same. I nearly went crazy when I first got here before they said everything was going to be okay.’